Masteries

Offense:
9

Defense:
18

Utility:
3

Pros/Cons

Pros:
- Easily able to apply hard CC coupled with engage and escapes in teamfights and lane ganks.
- Proper use of your meeps will allow for you to use your AOE auto attack to push lanes when needed.

Cons:
- Fixed in the top lane you are unable to properly get Meeps that may be outside of your upper jungle/lane.
- Runes and Masteries must be adjusted properly for the role.. This requires farming, and some tank for the top lanes current meta in order to survive and sustain.
- You will likely be hated on by everyone else in your team for going outside of the norm... But you're reading this so you probably don't give a ****.

Unique Skills

For those that are unaware, bard has an interesting skill set...

- His Q is a Stun, much like Lux, it will make contact and give a small AOE stun to those it hits.
- His W is a heal which sits on the ground like a medpack, the longer it sits, the more it gives. Its a nice spot heal for a fight or a good gift to leave a jungler or yourself for lane sustain.
- His E is ideal for team engage or disengage. Bite off more than you can chew? Time to run, and if the enemy follows you pop your Ulti at their landing pad and blow your load.
- His R is an AOE Hourglass active which impacts turrets, creeps, jungle monsters and champions. This includes friendly champs... This is something than can be used for two purposes. The first, is obvious... Use it on the enemy team and allow your DPS to get into position to blow up the enemy DPS or simply run away from your enemy when disengaging. The second is less obvious. If your team is getting engaged by a heavy CC group, use your Ult on yourselves and let their cooldowns go into effect. It is a good way to wait out your enemy and plan with your team. This needs to only be done when on some form of comms or otherwise expect the reports and hate mail.